4 DROSERA ROTUNDIFOLIA. Cuar. 1 
secondly, the power possessed by the leaves of render- 
ing soluble or digesting nitrogenous substances, and 
of afterwards absorbing them; thirdly, the changes 
which take place within the cells of the tentacles, when 
the glands are excited in various ways. 
It is necessary, in the first place, to describe briefly 
the plant. It bears from two or three to five or six 
leaves, generally extended more or less horizontally, 
but sometimes standing vertically upwards. The shape 
and general appearance of a leaf is shown, as seen 
from above, in fig. 1, and as seen laterally, in fig. 2. 
The leaves are commonly a little broader than long, 
(Drosera rotundifolia.) 
Old leaf viewed laterally ; enlarged about five times. 
but this was not the case in the one here figured. 
The whole upper surface is covered with gland-bearing 
filaments, or tentacles, as I shall call them, from their 
manner of acting. The glands were counted on thirty- 
one leaves, but many of these were of unusually large 
size, and the average number was 192; the greatest 
number being 260, and the least 130. The glands are 
each surrounded by large drops of extremely viscid 
secretion, which, glittering in the sun, have given rise 
to the plant’s poetical name of the sun-dew. 
The tentacles on the central part of the leaf or disc are 
short and stand upright, and their pedicels are green. Towards 
the margin they become longer and longer and more inclinea 
